Take a seat? No, really.

Jul 2, 2014

Take a seat? No, really.

An office job, once an aspiration for the working classes, is now practically a death sentence.

A review recently published in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute clinches it: Sitting can be fatal. A study of 70,000 cancer patients found that sitting is associated with a 24% increased risk of colon cancer, a 32% increased risk of endometrial cancer, and a 21% increased risk of lung cancer. It also leads to obesity and all its ills. Even worse? You can’t exercise away sitting’s harmful effects. On the bright side: Short bouts of movement might help. Think I’ll go walk this to the gallery right now. —Diane Richard, writer, July 2

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Image: Reuters/Simon Newman

Source: Hannah Newman, “Why not even exercise will undo the harm of sitting all day—and what you can do about it,” Quartz/The Atlantic,June 26